Terror on the streets with 130 knife attacks a day
THE TRUE extent of the nation’s horrific knife crime epidemic has been revealed in shocking statistics showing there are almost 130 serious knife offences committed every day.
Home Office figures reveal how hundreds of people are being targeted by knife-wielding attackers every month.
Although much of the focus about knife crime has centred on the tragic deaths of young men in London, the statistics show offences are endemic across nearly the entire nation.
It has led one expert to claim that the stretched police service has lost control of the situation.
In the first nine months of 2019, officers in England and Wales logged 35,354 serious offences where knives were used, a rise of almost four per cent on the 34,109 logged during the same period in 2018.
From January to September last year police recorded 179 knife killings – running at a rate of almost five every week.
Over the same time there were 339 attempted murders, 403 rapes by knife attackers and 161 other sexual assaults.
But the knife crime tally becomes truly shocking when the 15,802 assaults and 15,259 muggings are added to the total, along with the 3,211 offences of making death threats. In last year’s general election
The police areas with the worst knife crime figures for January to September 2019
Metropolitan
West Midlands
West Yorkshire
Thames Valley
Merseyside campaign Boris Johnson vowed to crack down on the epidemic. He said: “A Conservative government would come down hard on the scourge of knife crime.
“We have committed to putting an extra 20,000 police officers on our streets but they need to have the powers to act decisively and effectively to prevent crime and see that offenders face justice.
“That’s why today we are announcing greater freedoms for the police to use stop and search on individuals who are known to have carried knives in the past.
“We are also speeding up prosecutions to make sure the threat of being caught is always an effective deterrent.” David
Spencer, research director at the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: “The knife crime epidemic sweeping the country is verging on a national emergency and it is having a devastating impact on communities across the country.
“It is clear that the police have lost control of the situation and urgent new powers are needed to allow them to get these knives, and the thugs brandishing them, off our streets.
“The suggestion of knife crime ASBOS is woefully inadequate. What we need is more police on the streets with the power to search and stronger sentences for anyone caught in possession of a knife or committing a knife-related offence.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “We are making our communities safer by recruiting 20,000 extra police officers over the next three years, investing in violence reduction units as well as early intervention projects to steer young people away from knife crime.
“We are also changing the law so that police, councils and health authorities are legally required to work together to prevent and tackle serious violence.”